


Meet Me At The End of The World

by ephemeralstar



Series: horses running until they forget that they are horses [2]
Category: Red Dead Redemption (Video Games)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Angst, Character Death, Except...... ya know, F/M, Family Feels
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-26
Updated: 2019-11-26
Packaged: 2021-01-29 12:24:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,098
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21410143
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ephemeralstar/pseuds/ephemeralstar
Summary: The idea of death is both a comfort and a fear. A comfort, for soon he'll be with his wife, a fear, for soon he'll be leaving his son.
Relationships: Sean MacGuire/Original Female Character(s)
Series: horses running until they forget that they are horses [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1543420
Comments: 1
Kudos: 13





	Meet Me At The End of The World

People die in the West, the last of the outlaws now dropping like flies as the law catches up with them. Adelaide always clung to the label like her life depended on it. She was never a gunslinger, or common thief, and she'd never had the charisma to be a rogue, the way Sean was, she was an outlaw from the day she ran from home. Sean had always fancied himself a modern-day Robin Hood, with maybe a few more fires here and there, but a '_steal-from-the-rich-and-give-to-the-poor_' type. He was nowhere _near _exempt from the law, but at least he was aware of that fact.

But Adelaide still considers herself an outlaw, so she's not surprised when they come for her. It's not the first time. Their family is no stranger to bounty hunters. Usually, they're trying to take her all the way back to Strawberry, to persecute her for the deaths of her father and brothers, which she is not actually responsible for, but a lie from Sean, while she keeps out of sight, it has them searching elsewhere Their home is a few miles outside of Saint Denis, on a little prairie, an hour's ride from the edge of the bayou. It's easy enough to see people coming for them, even easier to take care of them on the open road if they don't take no for an answer, send their horses fleeing and take their bodies to be fed to the alligators who've made a home in the swampy marsh. But that's a very last resort. 

Together, their family had built a stable out the back of the home when their son, Fionn, was still a baby. It got a little bigger as he did, making room for his own horse when he was old enough to ride. Now, the three horses, Ennis, Nursey, and Hudson, all live happily, roaming freely in the family's fenced-off paddock, alongside a flock of chickens Sean had managed to co-opt from some unsuspecting farm some miles away.

It's peaceful. It's as close to a permanent safe haven as they've ever had. It's their son's _home_. 

And that's shattered with a gunshot. 

Fionn, who's almost twelve, is with Sean, the two of them managing the horses, brushing them, feeding them, talking and laughing on the crisp Spring morning. There's hoofbeats along the road, just a single set, and they don't seem to notice it, until there comes a gunshot that seems to shake the house like thunder. 

Sean's bolting before he even registers what has happened, racing to the front of the building. Adelaide is laying, gardening trowel in hand, in the half-planted flowerbed, and there's a bounty hunter dismounting his horse. Adelaide's gurgling and gasping out her breath, her empty hand twitching towards where she was reaching for her shotgun, just out of her grasp where it's laying on the porch. Sean doesn't even think, just unholsters his gun and is grateful that his aim has improved over the years, as he fires three shots into the chest of the bounty hunter, who was reaching for his own gun upon seeing Sean. 

The man drops, and Sean falls to his knees by Adelaide. Gently, he turns her from where she was face down in the dirt, tears welling in his eyes as he hears her struggle and gasp for air. Her chest is a bloody mess of shotgun shrapnel, tearing apart her chest and throat, the shot having shattered her sternum.

"Mam?" Fionn's voice is so _so _quiet. 

The gardenias had died during the Winter, she'd just wanted to replant with something more hardy, and the violets by her body were blooming a beautiful purple in their little terracotta pots. She'd just wanted a garden she could be proud of, a beautiful home for when her friends and family would come to visit.

"Mam?" It was pleading now, Fionn sinking down to sit by his father, who was cradling Adelaide to him.

"Fio?" Adelaide managed, and the sound of her strained voice had the child crying, nodding adamantly. Adelaide reached out with a single, weak, shaking hand, still dirty from her gardening, and she runs a finger along her son's cheek, "It's... _okay_." 

Sean knows well enough that you can't pull someone back from a shotgun wound to the chest, but he can't move. He cradles her, not speaking, not moving, just holding her close to him. Fionn's crying, he's inside, curled up in his parents' bed, and he's bawling his eyes out, Sean can hear him.

The next day, Sean packs a bag for Fionn, gives him a map, and a letter to pass on, and tells him to head West, down a route the child knew well, to stay with Arthur. Fionn rides Adelaide's horse, Nursey, the most reliable of their steeds, and Sean knows that that alone would be enough to convince Arthur that it's not some sort of hoax. His son wants to protest, but Sean gives him a photo of the three of them.

"I'll come get ya soon, lad, go be safe." He instructs, and Fionn's expression is a little dark, a little hurt, but mostly pained, and he nods. Nursey takes off; she seems yet to realise what's happened to her rider.

Adelaide is buried behind the stables, with a headstone Sean gets made in Saint Denis. The funeral is small, he really only invites the old Van Der Linde gang, but it's enough. They were like family for both Sean and Adelaide, it's what she would have wanted. Arthur brings Fionn, who's quiet and angry and barely holding himself together. He turned twelve while he was away and couldn't even bring himself to celebrate.

Sean can't look anyone in the eye, and when they ask what happened, he can only say '_fuckin' bounty hunter_'. Arthur and Dutch are especially hurt by her passing; they'd always regarded Adelaide like a younger sister, or even a daughter. Arthur gives Sean a sketch from his journal, it's terribly old, the graphite has smudged, but Sean would recognize Adelaide's smile anywhere. It's a good likeness, good enough that seeing it makes him tear up at the mere sight.

The garden is still only half planted. Fionn gets _angry, _doesn't want to stay in a house where anyone could just _find _them, could get to him or his da-

"They're not gonna come after me like they did your mam," Sean says, and Fionn doesn't know what to say to that. Something breaks between the father and son, like Fionn somehow blames his father for what happened, as if he could have done something to save Adelaide, or to keep her from committing the crimes that got her killed in the first place. She was never one to be controlled, never one to listen to orders, but try as he might, Sean can't make Fionn understand. He's a lot like Adelaide in that regard, stubborn and headstrong.

But he listens when Sean teaches him how to shoot properly, teaches him about explosives the way Adelaide had taught him, teaches him how to gain Nursey's trust and ride the horse like Adelaide once had. It's for self preservation, that's what Fionn's always told, because the outlaw lifestyle will get you killed. It's harsh to hear, reminds him, jarringly, of his mother, though Fionn takes it to heart. 

As soon as he's old enough to travel, Fionn takes off. He's almost fifteen, with his own journal full of addresses. He'd learned to read from various kind samaritans in Saint Denis, and he knows enough about the world to be aware that he knows very little. He already knows all that his father can teach him. So he heads out to find Charles Smith, to learn to hunt, to put the rough skills he has to use. He'll search out the rest of them, find his niche within the world, and along the way he'll hear them tell tales of his parents' bravery, the daring lives they lead before him.

Fionn is with Hosea when he hears the news of his father's passing.

It's a letter from Arthur, who'd been with him when he'd died. Raiders had ransacked the quiet family home as Sean had been getting back from town. It was a lost cause, someone had already set the house alight, and it wouldn't be long before the remains of Adelaide's explosives left the house as a crater, but his horse had spooked, alerted the raiders to his presence, and as they chased him, shot at him, one of them had put a bullet in his lung. 

Arthur was the closest, and Sean had ridden through the night to him. Coughing up blood, he knew no-one in Saint Denis could have helped him; all he wanted was good company as the world was fading around him. 

"He'd said they wouldn't come for him like they did for ma," Fionn clenches his jaw tightly, the letter creasing in his iron grip. Hosea's expression is gentle and apologetic as he tries to extract it. There's tears in the young boy's eyes as he lets go of the letter. Hosea doesn't have the heart to tell him that it couldn't have been helped; it wasn't calculated like his mother's death had been, Sean had just been in the wrong place at the wrong time.

"_So this is how I go? Coughing up blood on Arthur Morgan's sofa_," Sean had been able to smile even at the end, and Arthur sat by him, cleaning the wound as best he could, though he knew it was no use.

"_Why'd you come to me, boy?_" 

"_You know you can't keep calling me '_boy_', I have a son now._" Sean had half laughed, but the thought made his expression drop and he wheezed out a sad sigh. "_What do you think happens?_" He'd asked, and for the barest moment he sounds like he did back at Clemens Point, like a child, barely out of his teens. "_To Fionn? To me? What -?_" And he coughed, breathing coming in ragged and panicked with blood having filled his right lung, now seeping into his left.

"_Fionn will be fine; he's got family, me 'n' Dutch 'n' the Marstons, we'll keep him safe._" Arthur assures gently, pulling out a bottle of whiskey, the only thing he can think to offer in this time. He can't do anything else for Sean now.

"_He'll be fine?_" Sean asks, voice surprisingly serious before he takes a swig.

"_We'll keep him out of this life, I promise. We'll keep him out of trouble-_"

"_You fuckin' better, Arthur Morgan,_" Sean threatens, with a sharp smile, though the world is dulling at the edges.

"_I promise._" Arthur reiterates, before his expression turns gentle.

"_That's why I'm here; because you're family_," Sean tells him, a little too honestly, and he finishes off the bottle, whimpering as he lays back on the sofa, "_I didn't want Fio to see me like this, not after everything he went through with Addie. He's just a boy, Arthur."_

"_We'll keep him safe_." Arthur gave a gentle pat on the ginger's shoulder, and the thought of his son's survival seemed to comfort Sean. "_And you_," Sean makes a noise of interest, looking for the barest amount of comfort at this time, and Arthur smiles, "_you'll get to see Miss Mad Dog_."

"_I'll get to see Addie_," Sean nods, and it seems to comfort him enough that he can relax, just a little. Arthur swallows hard, watching as the life slowly spills from one of his oldest friends. "_She'll be wearin' that skirt and blouse number she wore that night she rescued me,_" he says gently, eyes unfocusing as he thinks on it, "_I love her no matter how she's acting, but there's somethin' special about that night, she was so gentle._"

"_Is that where she'll be? At the Horseshoe Overlook camp?_" Arthur prompts, and Sean laughs, rather dreamily.

"_No, no way. She'll be... she'll be at our house, with Nursey and Ennis. It's... the middle of the day; blue skies as far as the eye can see... and she's finally planting the last of the violets in the front garden; it's perfect. It's Spring and everything's perfect._" His voice grows weaker, and Arthur leans over, taking his free hand, and Sean gives it a weak squeeze, a strangely peaceful smile on his face.

"_What do you think she'll say when she sees you?_" He asks, and Sean hums, smiling faintly, his eyes falling closed.

"_She thinks I've been away too long._"


End file.
